Based on a survey by GetResponse, e-mail messages that included a social sharing option generated 30 percent higher click-through rates (CTRs) than e-mails without a social sharing option.

E-mail messages that include a social sharing option generate 30 percent higher click-through rates (CTRs) than e-mails without a social sharing option, and messages with three or more sharing options generate 55 percent higher CTRs, according to GetResponse's study, "Email Marketing and Social Media Integration Report." The study also found that e-mails with a Twitter sharing option return over 40 percent higher CTRs than messages without any social media links.

The GetResponse study analyzed social media integration and sharing using Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Digg in almost 500 million e-mails sent by 19,149 GetResponse customers. The survey found 60 percent of all social e-mails included only one sharing icon and only 11.2 percent of social e-mails included three icons or more. Twitter was the most popular social sharing option, included in 67.2 percent of all social e-mails; Facebook came in a close second at 62.7 percent. E-mails shared on Twitter returned CTRs of 10.20 percent, over 40 percent higher than messages not linked to any social media.